Mandy Nolan

In the War on Trauma we care for hurt people. We understand the importance of safety, of nutrition, of connection to community, of addressing loneliness, of the power of being in nature.  Being locked in jail for drug-related offences doesn’t change the underlying reasons for why someone has addiction issues. It just amplifies the trauma. And amplified trauma leads to drug harm.

I used to love the sound of rain. Now, like many others, it frightens me. It reminds me that we are not ready. That...

The Queen is dead. Surprisingly it’s no surprise. She was 96. An age colonised Indigenous women will never reach. The Queen never had to...

It’s almost 6pm. I’ve been checking the clock. At 6pm I have a glass of wine. I start looking forward to it around 4pm. There’s a warm fuzzy glow knowing that at 6pm I get to open a bottle and pour a fresh red.

In nearly every small town in Australia there is a modest hall where older women meet to have tea, compare crotchet patterns and commit acts of random kindness, otherwise known as improving conditions for disadvantaged people in their rural communities. They have been doing that for 100 years. They are the CWA. A non-party political, non-sectarian organisation that mainly relies on volunteers. 

Right now ex-Prime Minister Scott Morrison is the most hated man in the Liberal party. He has broken the trust of his nation. He has deceived his own party. He has given satirists, bored with the well-meaning and benign Albo, a small renaissance into the narcissism of old. He’s memed himself into the history books. 

My heroes are people like climate change activist Mali Cooper, the 22-year-old Lismore woman who was among 12 people charged for blocking the entry to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. Mali and her friends brought Sydney to a standstill and they did it knowing the consequences under the new NSW protest laws. It’s no longer a $400 fine. Protesters now face up to two years jailtime and/or a fine of $22k. 

Some weeks it’s hard to navigate the big feelings I have around injustice; the kind of injustice that occurs every day, everywhere, underwritten by the privilege of some at the expense of the many. The shit stuff people get away with! The shit stuff no one notices. Shit stuff always happens to people who don’t have much to start with. I sometimes wonder how you can hear story after story and not realise the system is broken. Capitalism sucks. Let’s go break stuff – like, the dominant paradigm! We haven’t managed to subvert it – so can we smash it into tiny pieces? Please?

The Aboriginal community continues to lead the way when it comes to Flood Response. Yesterday key stakeholders gathered on The Ngunya Jargoon IPA lands at Wardell to present the Bundjalung Nation Flood Response.

Your vagina is perfect. Has anyone ever said that to you? A doctor? A friend? A lover? Your mother? Perhaps they should. Vagina dysmorphia has extreme consequence. In fact, it’s become a thriving industry.

Around 20 per cent of Australians live with chronic pain. It’s consistent with worldwide stats that indicate one in five people suffer from chronic pain (CP) with prevalence increasing with age. I woke at 1am and started thinking about this. And then I woke again at 1.30am and 2am and then I lay there until after 3am. I might have drifted but woke at about 4.30am to roll over. I am in pain.

There is something magical about a country hall. These small wooden buildings dot the landscape. They have a frugal modesty and an old fashioned generosity. If they had names they’d be called Thelma or Rose or Alan. They’re a pungent olfactory mix of last week’s wedding enmeshed with yesterday’s committee meeting. Curry and Jatz, tea and beer, tears and laughter.

The right to safe abortion is the cornerstone of the women’s movement. It’s the ground on which we stand to become lawyers and academics and policy writers and journalists and activists. It’s allowed us reproductive freedom and put us on equal footing with those without wombs; mainly cis men who, for centuries, saw our bodies as countries to rape and pillage. Our wombs were colonised – the cock was the flag that ploughed deep into our stolen earth.

As a writer you never really know what is going to strike a chord with your audience. What will inspire them? Make them think? Make them change their mind? Make them angry? After more than two decades of publishing I am still surprised by what rocks a reader’s boat. About a week ago I discovered that a lot of people have strong opinions on the humble iceberg. I’m not talking about the one that took out theTitantic. I’m talking about the one that has been sinking wallets at the supermarket.

This weekend the country watched the Nadesalingam family return to Bilo. They saw Tharnica, a little girl born in this country who had spent four years in detention celebrate her fifth birthday. After four years this family of Tamil asylum seekers have gone home to the central Queensland town of Biloela. The love of a small town for this family tells a very clear story; that there is a place in this country for resettling refugees. 

This June it’s ten years since Julian Assange sought political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Disguised as a motorcycle courier the WikiLeaks publisher sought refuge from extradition to the US – where they want him to face 17 charges of espionage and one of computer misuse. After seven years in the embassy Assange was removed to Belmarsh Prison, and in April this year after three years of incarceration, a British Court approved Assange’s extradition to the US. 

Welcome to America. Where the Second Amendment right to bear arms has become the right to shoot kids. Last week 19 children and two teachers were gunned down at the Robb Elementary School in Ulvade, Texas. Since the 1999 shooting at Columbine more than 311,000 students have experienced gun violence. 169 people have died.  And still they don’t change their laws to keep children safe. The same place that has introduced ‘the heartbeat law’ where women can go to jail for having an abortion at seven weeks, won’t bring in regulations that might protect actual children from being gunned down at their desks.

Politics is a phenomenal experience. To work harder than you thought possible, to put yourself so absolutely in the public domain full of hope and belief. Then to ask for judgement. It’s high stakes. A kind of ethical and philosophical extreme sport.

The election is almost here. Hooray. It’s time we got down with Elvis Presley’s suggestion of ‘A little less conversation, a little more action, please.’ I’m a big fan of action. I’ve been at this for 14 months, and as a writer who holds the ear of the community each week I’ve been cognizant not to turn this into a hostage situation. For twenty years I’ve talked about politics and social issues and shared insights into my personal experiences, but this is one journey where I’ve had to keep you locked out. 

Why are women still having to fight for bodily autonomy? What’s happening in the US right now could have more sinister implications for the reproductive rights of women all around the world. And let’s be clear, data from the World Health Organisation shows that banning abortion has no effect on abortion rates throughout the world. It does however have an impact on women’s safety and their mortality. 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers. This complex role of nurture is so unappreciated, so deeply embedded into our sense of worth, so important to how we conduct our relationships, how we feel about ourselves. So here’s to the stories we don’t see. The mothers who exist in the margins. I see you. We see you. Happy Mother’s Day.